For the past seventy-five years the School of Art and Art History has collected thousands of artworks by artists attending the School's graduate studio programs. Each graduate student was required to leave behind a work they completed during their graduate studies here at the University of Iowa. The collection contains over 6,000 paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures and other art objects. The collection is unique in the country and provides a critical glimpse of academic American art over much of the last century.

Christine Buckton Tillman grew up Chicago's Northern Suburbs. It was in this endless network of suburbs that she developed her sincere fascination with artifice. Christine went on to spend seven years in the great state of Iowa, earning her BA from Coe College and her MFA from the University of Iowa. She adopted two cats, fell in love with a nice boy, moved to Maryland, and got married.

Christine Buckton Tillman now lives in Baltimore. She exhibits her work frequentlyin the Mid Atlantic and beyond. She is a member of the Upper School Faculty at the Park School of Baltimore, where she also serves as Exhibitions Educator.

"The work I make draws from my collection of images and objects in which I see an inner dichotomy-objects that are at the same time happy and sad, full of joy, and utterly hollow. These objects lose something in translation, the phenomena of a rainbow becomes trite and cliché on the cover of a notebook. I am particularly interested in objects who's meanings confuse their intended purpose, the bride and groom caketopper who's lips are painted askew, the fake wood of wood grain contact paper."

"I want my work to transform my collection, making things transcend the world of leftovers and craft store while simultaneously embracing and questioning the ideas of cute, fun, festive, and romantic."